Out of the bread slump!!

My mother taught me how to make whole wheat bread when I was a young teenager. And I did a great job at making the dough, struggled a little bit with putting it in the pans but it always came out of the oven looking and smelling heavenly. And I never worried about making bread after those teenage years.

And then while living in Virginia, something happened and my bread didn't turn out. As a dough, the bread would rip and not form into loaves very well. As a bread it was a bit crumbly but still worked. I soon realized that the wheat that I had purchased had a really low gluten/protein level and had to add gluten to make sure the dough would stick together.

And then I moved to Ohio, and made a batch of bread...and it was terrible. As a dough, it ripped while I was trying to put it into pans, it didn't raise, it smelled great but was small and heavy. I was so frustrated. I had made sure to have good wheat (higher gluten level) and followed the recipe that I've had memorized in my head since I was thirteen years. And so the next couple months, I tried to use of the bread but not in sandwiches because it would just fall apart. (Later I found out I was still using my "bad" wheat and not the "good" wheat). And then I made another batch (6 loaves) of bread for when my family came to visit. And it was even worse. I mean, I tried to make french toast with this awful bread and the bread would break apart as I was pulling it out of the egg mixture. And let's not forget the tuna fish sandwiches that would fall apart before you could raise it up to your mouth.

And so this last week it was time to make another batch of bread and I was ready. I'd been gathering information from ladies that make bread in Northern Ohio. I asked each one what makes great whole wheat bread. I got some great advice and applied a little bit of each to this last batch of bread. I also added some gluten...to my bad wheat...because the thing I found out after making all my different loaves of bread, was that I have good wheat and bad wheat, and I had been using the bad wheat even when I thought I'd grabbed wheat from the good wheat bucket.

And, I ended up making terrific bread...and gave it all to SM's co-workers because I wanted to make sure it wasn't a fluke...and made another batch of bread. This time I also made some cinnamon roles along with the bread. And, it is all delicious! And I'm out of my bread slump!! Back to making terrific bread!!